


hourglass

by flowersforlukey



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforlukey/pseuds/flowersforlukey
Summary: “It’s a heartbeat. You’llneverbe ready.”The hallows of Thor’s head is consumed with Loki’s voice as he spoke the words back in Swartalfheim, and with a glance at Stormbreaker, Thor thinks, yes, Loki’s right—he will never be ready.





	hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my documents for a couple months now oof so yup I actually forgot to post this after Infinity War.
> 
> Anyways, here's a little treat. My other hospital fic, [Juda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800830/chapters/44608387), is coming up quite nicely as we approach the last chapter but let's return to our favorite Asgardians at the moment.
> 
> Enjoy!

Seven.

Seven years inching slowly to a tight decade since Thor has last squeezed the dip between his brother’s hips when holding him close. It’s as if the mere idea of each caress against emerald leather has turned vague even to the memory of Thor’s fingers.

“They’re cold,” Loki points out, when the distance between him and Thor resurfaces and the rumbling noises of the Statesman returns to their hearing range.

Thor spends a stretch of seconds studying his brother's gaze. “What is?”

“Your hands,” Loki says, eyes fixating somewhere beneath Thor’s neck before retreating. “Cold.”

Thor doesn't see Loki the entire night after their last encounter in the Statesman. He buries himself into the shadows of his room and only breaks out into existence once summoned by Heimdall to be crowned as king.

Asking the gatekeeper about his brother's whereabouts has become a temptation he chooses to ignore. If Thor dedicates enough time to ponder over just _why_ Loki had returned, if would mean paying less attention to the surviving Asgardians who are starved and burdened with the uncertainty of a successful relocation, which is why Thor doesn't _think_ about Loki for some time. He doesn't dare wonder what Loki could be plotting at this moment, what he could be shielding from the many wandering eyes in the ship. 

If Loki is only staying with the intent to ask something in return, well, wouldn't that be a grand sight? Thor himself possesses no power inclined towards his brother's liking that would encourage Loki enough to remain in the ship whilst Thor carries the burden of the throne.

Often, it plagues Thor's head with concern.

And often, Thor would rethink the question himself and come to a conclusion that Loki would find every reason to flee should he be aware of the reason for Thor’s mislaid and _obvious_ worry. Since the idea of Loki only departing because of Thor's distrust will likely happen, Thor decides to confide no one and speak of nothing.

It's not until he's walking through the mass of surviving Asgardians and sitting on his makeshift throne when Thor notices his brother walking toward his direction with a sly smile as if to say, _the day has come, brother _.__

“You’re nervous,” Loki whispers to his side.

Thor is only partly offended. “I am not.”

“I didn’t ask.” Loki shakes his head and Thor wonders how it's possible to be so transparent. As if having read his mind, Loki places a hand over Thor’s tense shoulder, warm wisps of seidr flowing like lost streaks through the crisp metal of Thor's armor. “Still cold.”

When Heimdall offers his eyes for Thor to see into the stars, Loki does not vanish from his side.

**…**

“The engines have shown potential malfunction since the last jump, my King. I suggest immediate inspection lest we encounter further disruptions on board.”

It’s not until the middle-aged Asgardian bows his head that Thor slips an exhausted sigh. There has been no telling of the exact space run time, but Thor could guess that it hasn’t been over half a day since being crowned, and he's already bearing the burden of the ship’s engineering failures.

Heimdall stands not far away from the bridge, wordless, only observing the actions of the newly crowned king. Thor _would_ ask for counsel but the timing seems too unfit. He could ask Bruce to tend to the raised concerns of the engineers, only that his Midgardian friend is somewhere stuck inside a body of a still unstable green creature.

“Do you not acquire the tools needed in case of repair?” Thor asks. He picks at the skin around his wrist.

The man offers a meek nod. “I sent men to search for any equipment stored in the vaults. Fortunately, there has been a stock, but I’m afraid they would not be of use for long.”

Well, that is _far_ from fortunate. Thor sighs in distress, wishing he had paid far more attention in the lectures about matter foundation in his youth as he does not posses the appropriate knowledge for this problem. Then an idea ignites, a wise one indeed, and even though Thor has tried avoiding the means to execute the solution at all cost, the situation he had to face now is dire enough to swallow his pride even just for a night.

“Do any sorcerers live still?”

The question hangs heavily in the air. Thor watches as the man visibly hesitates in front of him. 

“A single hand could count. Three of which are merely children. I’m not acquainted enough with the rest of the survivors to know of more.”

“Very well, then.” Thor clears his throat loudly, dismissing the Asgardian. He stops picking at his wrist altogether, afraid that he may scar himself from the absentminded habit. “I must see my brother today and speak with him.”

Loki is the closest thing he has to having a mechanic knowledgeable enough to know about the Statesman and its currently failing engines. Thor would really rather turn up to Bruce’s front door than speak with his brother, but at this moment, Bruce wouldn’t be literate enough to even speak about the ship's primary mechanism.

Thor supposes he doesn’t have much of a choice. He walks past Heimdall and goes straight to his chambers with a burdened chest.

As expected, Loki is already there, seated on a chair that leans toward the glass window, pale fingers fixing the creases of his leathers.

“Our people seek you,” Thor says as a greeting. Loki doesn’t even bother lifting his head an inch. “The engines have shown reoccurring failure and our men cannot work upon repair unless the problem in the engines is identified. I know no one apart from you who can help them.”

Pale fingers crawl towards the night-stand. Loki picks up a glass half-filled with an unknown substance.

“It’s not good,” he says.

Thor looks at him, watches Loki’s fingers clinically. “What is?”

“This ale,” Loki says. The fingers Thor has been watching wrap around the translucent glass before they cover the object in vibrant glow of green. “An embarrassment, what it is.”

Thor is forced to release a sigh. This familiar approach to conversation, one that has Thor beating around the bush for a favor—an habit Thor would _gladly_ pass onto his silver-tongued brother—is perhaps not at all welcome even during the embrace of both of their differences and shifts in the dynamic of their relationship.

Thor could see just how his conclusion removes the doubt inside his head. This Loki doesn’t even meet his eyes as they speak. Though there are earnest words on the tip of his tongue, the ones he chooses to swallow are of pride and hesitation. Thor is sure of it. 

He worries not for the price of Loki’s return, only for the events that may become potential problems even before they happen in the future. It is not a mystery as to why Loki is showing the exact same recurrence of this display—harboring the foulest of moods, snapping at anyone in inopportune times, the open profession of his need to _leave_ once and for all.

If this Loki wishes to bring back what he truly desires, which is to fall back into habits and leave to trigger the strangest sorrow grown Thor has already grown strangely familiar with, then Thor has no reason to doubt Loki's plans.

This makes Thor skip the invite of a new conversation—one which he cannot really consider _new_ for the amount of times it has been brought up in past occasions—upon realizing that Loki puts up no show to conceal his already suspected departure and instead leaves it to Thor alone to address the obvious if anticipation becomes him.

It's almost ironic to see that Loki makes no effort to soften the blow. When he leaves, Thor will be left feeling out of place again. Nothing will make the situation easier for him.

“How much time am I left with to waste away?”

_...before you leave me once again?_

The question is phrased carefully, and Thor’s lips hesitate at the end of the sentence. It’s only then that Loki stares at him with evident surprise.

“You will waste none.”

“And you would think me a fool should I believe you.” Thor shakes his head. A lump forms in his throat and he suppresses the bitter laugh that attempts to escape his lips. “You mean to tell me there’s no telling when this _facade_ ends? One night you're here and in the next dawn you'll have slipped away? Your subtlety is _appalling_."

Light bursts free from Loki's palm and shatters the glass.

Streaks of gold illuminate the room in tinted shadows, lucid and familiar but different from the usual green tint of Loki's magic. Thor, however, does not mistake the shift of hue in as an incorrectly worded spell, nor a slip-up considered as an honest mistake even for the greatest sorcerers who usually never encounter faults.

This time, the obvious change is almost a spectacle to see.

On only very rare occasions does Loki’s magic turn into ashen gold. By then, Thor knows that the energy harnessed by Loki’s enclosing hand does not resemble the innocent light given off during common spells of shapeshifting or teleportation.

Thor ignores the sight altogether. Meanwhile, Loki speaks with evident anger in his voice.

“Your counselors lack attendance and basic direction. The Valkyrie does not share similar knowledge over political bearings with which the All-father has burdened me even when I was merely capable of understanding such matters. Heimdall will not step up as your fallback during your reign; he carries the burden of the All-sight and suffers well enough with the duty to protect the people. Have you ever thought through how I would react once I am beckoned for my assistance in your reign?”

Oh.

For a while, Thor does not speak. Loki is staring at him in a way that makes Thor feel as though the layers of his skin are being peeled off along with all traces left of his dignity.

And Loki, who seems to have sensed the shift in Thor’s demeanor, shoves his hand into his leathers to kill the light and says in that all-too-familiar accusatory tone, “You think me incapable."

Thor groans, frustrated. “How in the Nine was I supposed to know that you have nothing but well intentions to remain here as I rule?”

“Perhaps if you had picked up the signs far quicker than I anticipated, then all of this would have been avoided.”

“Well, you never gave me a reason to hop on.”

“I did,” Loki says, and he sounds like he means in. The hand he has tucked into his leathers resurfaces with the still blinding golden luster. Seeming to have sensed the curiosity in Thor’s face, Loki waves his hand and sets the air above it on fire. “I have. Back at the bridge, right before I laid as an ally before your throne.”

Ally.

Somehow, it’s a word that sounds strange even to Thor’s hopeful ears, only having been considered vague for he has not hoped for anything else other than Loki recognizing himself worthy of genuine reliance.

At the mention of this, Thor looks down at the hem of his breeches. Swallowing, he takes a seat on the mattress in front of Loki’s chair.

“I have always considered you an ally.”

“You have,” Loki agrees. “Perhaps not so much in the recent years, but there is another time for us to talk about it.”

Thor lets it pass for now, finding the better option of allowing Loki to lead their talk to an area that would not reopen bruised wounds of their younger selves.

“So you would help our people?”

Occasionally Loki would throw a fit and lay down the wrongness of the pronoun used to address the Asgardians. Thor expects the correction soon enough, but it does not come.

“If I appeal to your subjects,” Loki considers, “I just might.”

It’s only until then before he crawls across the distance and reaches for Thor. It’s an unforeseen movement that Thor flinches back and pulls his hand back in reflex before their arms even touch.

“ _Cold_ ,” he says, reading Loki's mind. “I know.”

Silence rings out like a haste alarm when Loki does not respond. Instead, the familiar mischievous glint in his irises flash brightly at Thor’s before Loki is reaching out for his brother’s hand once more.

“No, come watch.”

Their palms overlap. A beat. Nothing. Then there’s a shift in the atmosphere, and his hand is blue. _Thor’s_ hand is blue and it’s an unnerving experience to witness a part of himself dressed in warm Jotun skin.

And the glamour feels warm as Loki’s hand is completely covering his wrist and bathing the skin in warm wisps of magic.

Thor stares at the illusion as it dissipates, his curious eyes tracking the cerulean blue across his skin as it recedes slowly from the circumference of his wrist to the tips of his fingers. The glamour is gone the moment Loki releases him, and Thor pulls his own hand back with a wince, watching the sight unravel in utter fascination.

The confusion on his own face does not go unnoticed by his brother.

“Your concern is like a beacon for me,” Loki explains for him, perhaps after hearing the uproar inside Thor’s head. “Others would consider fidgeting of feet as the closest implication of displayed nerves, but when you refuse to radiate in your usual enthusiasm only do I notice your hesitation to act.”

Thor spends little over a second to process the new information. Blood runs through the veins underneath his skin, cold and menacing, hinting the surge of his inborn strength. It steals his breath away for a moment. With unblinking eyes, Thor lifts his lightning clad palm to Loki’s face.

“Would you notice if this happens?”

“Who wouldn’t?” Loki chuckles. Then he settles for a far more reserved tone. “I saw it coming; this power of yours yet to be unleashed. An impressive prowess, what it is.”

Thor laughs in surprise. “You flatter me.”

It seems like a millennium before he actually hears his own laughter die out. Silence hits Thor like a blow, forcing the strings of electricity to recede back into his fingertips. When he readjusts his vision clearly, he finds Loki already settled on sending him a long blank look.

It only bothers Thor a little. “Is there something on my face?”

 _There is none_ , Loki’s eyes seem to whisper, for he remains unspeaking in a long stretch of seconds and instead flickers his eyes towards the space between Thor’s neck and his chest. It gives off absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, yet Thor finds himself desperate for word, for a reassurance that nothing should be dreaded as time ticks by in severed chunks, and is given little to no time to shake the thought from his head—that it is _Loki_ whom he wishes to hear speak the first of those reassurances.

But it should not be. Loki should not be the one to hold him captive and untroubled. It’s just not what he does.

So when a subtle hint of a smile ghosts over Loki's face, Thor contemplates trusting the shift of appearance. He does not move, waits for Loki to act on his own, and pleads to silence the throbbing echo inside his chest.

“You must rest,” Loki says at last, shaking his head dismissively. He hoists himself off the chair and turns his heel to leave.

It’s not until when Loki visibly hesitates in front of the door that Thor realizes he must say something. He shifts on the mattress and gathers himself before he could break. Thor's words are wary when he speaks.

“And you?”

If there is any remorse held in Loki’s eyes when he looks back at Thor, it does not show. Loki's fingers twist around the door knob in a silent pleading gesture to escape.

“The engines.”

Thor wonders what has made his brother agree upon sorting out the distress over the ship’s engines. Eventually he decides not to dwell on the thought too much, for the heaviness he feels in his chest is far greater than what he has felt before, now that he watches the air leave the door with mislaid longing.

**…**

“My apologies, your highness.” Brunhilde places a folded sheet of papyrus on top of his desk. “The list. Took me a while to trace the last of the kin.”

Reluctantly, Thor lifts the paper and stares down at the ink scribbled at the fine edges. The names that are traced by his eyes are ones he does not recognize. They’re _newborns_ , of course, he figures. They could not have more. They could __not__ have had more.

“What is this?”

Brunhilde throws him a wary look at the question. An odd thing. She _knows_.

“All of Asgard’s sorceresses," she explains. "Newborns, all of them. We lack the advantage of tutors, unfortunately. They reside in their mother’s chamber with nothing but bread and water. Two of them grow sick as we go.”

Siblings. Thor swallows in silence and tucks the sheet underneath another scribe. When Thor had tasked the Valkyrie to gather the names of the remaining sorcerers, he hadn't expected them all to be newborns.

It's going to be a problem sooner than later.

“Only four?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Brunhilde nods. “Should the tutor need more?”

Thor doesn’t think about answering. Four should be enough as he doesn’t recall Loki ever having a liking toward large numbers. Thor’s rather unfortunate, however, that these sorcerers are barely grown children, and a fair understanding of an infant’s rather temperamental behavior would be enough to expect Loki’s short-lived patience.

So Thor nods, and motions to dismiss the Valkyrie. She's _supposed_ to leave, though at a different turn of events she refuses to move an inch and slams a hand above Thor’s desk, resulting to a discerning clamour.

“Your Majesty,” she says in mock surprise. “You intend your brother to _tutor_ these infants?”

Well. Now that it’s coming from another person, it doesn’t really make that much sense.

“Well, yes,” says Thor, skin twitching underneath the eye-patch. Brunhilde’s voice is probably a little too loud. It doesn’t do anything to help how Thor perceives himself illogical at the moment.

He sinks lower into his seat as Brunhilde takes two strides toward his desk. Her eyes are stoic but full of amusement nonetheless.

“It's a fine award for your brother’s idiotic tidings, I must say,” she says with a chuckle, slowly retreating with a nod of approval. “You let me take pride, my King.”

**…**

Thor enters his bedchambers without knocking, and just as he's expected, his eyes dart straight ahead to meet Loki’s preserved glare. His brother makes a decent sight of sitting on the edge of the bed with hands fumbling around a stack of papers.

Thor recognizes them as the list Brunhilde had given him.

“Is this your room, Loki?”

Thor doesn’t wait for his response as he plops face-down onto the mattress with his already sore limbs. He could feel Loki digging daggers straight into his back with the defensive stance, fingers prepared to spark any hazardous trickery—Thor could _certainly_ guess—at whatever mockery between him and the papers released from Thor’s very lips.

“How unkind of you to ignore the pressing matter at hand.”

Loki speaks as if he could sense how Thor is just another stride away from breaking the ice himself. Ice so thin that it risks pulling the prince-crowned-king down from the worries that have become too troublesome for his anxious mind.

Loki's words are nothing but a bait meant to squeeze the truth out from him. Thor makes a show of grunting obnoxiously into the sheets before finally flipping himself onto his back. From this angle, he could well witness how Loki’s scowl has managed to grow deeper.

“Do you wish to stay here?”

Loki snarls at the offer. “No.”

Thor allows himself a split second to glance at the papers in Loki’s hands. “Busy?”

“Is that meant to be some kind of _jest_?”

Thor is genuinely taken aback by the volume of Loki’s voice. With a quick but careful glance to his brother, he catches the sight of Loki flicking his wrist and setting the papers on fire. The scent of burnt papyrus fills the room with an unforgiving stench.

Loki fixes him an incredulous look, and Thor is suddenly hit with an immense wave of guilt. Of course his brother would wholly oppose to this notion of _tutoring sorcerers_ , for it is both an insult and a display of his own distrust for Loki’s actions.

And if there’s anything that could make Loki stay in the Statesman, it’s certainly not assigning him with tasks to teach the children the fundamentals of sorcery in hopes of keeping him _occupied_.

“Is this what troubles your mind then?” Loki asks, who seems perfectly aware of the absurdity of the idea itself. He closes his palm, killing the flame. The room soon grows cold without his magic to change the atmosphere. “Wishing me to handle students of my own whilst I bear the rather obvious display of their unwillingness?”

Even with his armour on, Thor is reduced to a helpless shivering mess on the mattress. Perhaps Loki had meant it to be this way—an amusement to get back at Thor for _totally_ ruining his stay on the ship.

And things had been going _so_ well without the doubt and mistrust.

“You don’t know that,” Thor tries. He’s tired, but he has to make this work in order to successfully be able to compromise with his brother. “It is but a wise move to try and preserve the gift given to you.”

Loki scoffs at that. “To try to keep me occupied? What in the Nine realms is _that_ supposed to mean, Thor?”

Thor sighs. He knows he’s said the wrong words, made the wrong decisions. He knows that finally holding Loki close after thinking that his brother had died along with Asgard’s demise and actually finding the courage to _hope_ that Loki would stay, had been _nothing_ but foolish of him.

Thor knows he’s losing. It’s all he ever does now.

“I meant well, brother.”

“Oh _really _?__ ” Loki asks, obviously insulted despite voice sounding neutral. Thor blinks, and his brother disappears the moment he reopens his eyes.

**…**

The next day, Thor meets Heimdall at the bridge.

“You fret too much,” the gatekeeper comments, eyes unmoving from where they're staring out of the window to uncover the depths of the void.

Thor doesn’t even try to deny it. “He remains unreadable to me.”

“As he’s always been.”

Strange, that. Loki is a maestro at concealment but Heimdall has been and still is blessed with eyes that see far beyond all arrays of magic. Loki couldn’t have had been able to conceal himself now.

“Even to you?” Thor asks, bewildered. With his attention finally caught, he turns to Heimdall with genuine curiosity.

Heimdall only nods at the stars. “Only your mother possessed the ability to see through his concealed demeanor… Though I can say your brother means well, my King.” He turns to Thor briefly. “He plots no longer and stays within the ship's premises without misbehavior.”

That catches Thor’s attention. He meets the gatekeeper’s eye, but looks down to his own boots at the earnest twinkle he sees.

He cannot bring himself to __hope.__

“What does he do during his spare time?”

Heimdall clicks his tongue, his gaze locking with the stars at last. They glimmer in the distance, surrounded by the endless void but still shining.

“He watches, and waits.”

Thor pauses to think, unable to grasp the unknown. “Waits for what?”

“Unfortunately, that I cannot tell,” Heimdall says apologetically. His eyes hold a glint too vague to be noticed. “But he watches you, my King.”

**…**

“Do you ever sleep?” Thor asks the moment he enters his room and finds Loki sprawled across the mattress, hands weaving runes in the air.

Loki doesn’t even spare him so much as a glance. “Yes.”

Thor looks back to the past two days, thinks about the nights he’s spent tossing and turning in the sheets when he'd failed to shut his mind up for always seeming to drift back to Loki.

Loki who keeps things to himself, Loki who has never spoke so plainly of his plans and insights. Loki who wanders in the ship doing whatever it is that he does.

Loki who Thor still hasn't witnessed sleeping in any other room in the Statesman.

Thor walks in further, locking the door behind him. He sets toward the foot of the bed where he could hover his brother.

“If not in my chambers, where?”

With a flick of his wrist, Loki calls forth a spell to seal the already locked door with his magic.

“Somewhere.”

Thor watches it happen, hears the the nagging voice inside his head that dares him to ask just __why__.

Why his brother is there, why he keeps coming into Thor's room. Why he watches, why he stays, why Loki cannot seem to stop claiming how much he despises his older brother yet constantly leaving subtle hints that prove just how Loki himself contradicts the very _idea_.

When Thor peels his armour off, he sees how Loki appears to find comfort in the sheets. They’re not warm, no, but they remind Thor of his rooms back in Asgard and how he has always managed to return to the familiarity of those closed corners.

Thor hopes they remind Loki of the same.

“You should stay,” he tells his Loki, who settles with staring at him from the mattress. They read each other with their eyes. Surprisingly, Loki does not chide him for the stale statement.

Thor waits for a second. Loki does not disappear. Thor’s breeches are beginning to dig into the flesh of his thighs so he removes them as well, and Loki just stares as he does so. Even as Thor strides into the wardrobe and replaces his clothing with regal silk, he waits during the long stretch of seconds, and yet Loki does not disappear.

He actually __stays.__

Thor doesn’t really know what has made his brother accept the offer.

“Why do you watch me?” he asks, breath held.

But it is a only chuckle Loki offers in reply. “You think too much, brother dear.”

“That’s all you ever do now, is it not?” Thor does not take bait. “Have you hidden yourself from Heimdall? He cannot see you.”

If that is enough to evoke anger from his brother, it is seen across Loki's expression. The scowl that appears on Loki’s face stretches quickly, and Thor is provoked into stepping just a few steps toward the bed.

“So you did console the gatekeeper about my exploits.” Loki sits up from the mattress, hands slowly clenching against the sheets. “Greediness does not suit you, Thor.”

And it’s in that moment that Thor _understands_ , sees what has remained blind to him for the past two days. It’s in Loki’s angered demeanor that Thor finds the wrongness of the atmosphere, pin points what it is exactly that keeps him awake at night and forcing him into restless dreams.

Thor remembers the tone of his brother's voice when Loki confessed his willingness to advice him through his reign, how it had sounded so optimistic, which led to Thor convincing himself that he was only hearing things.

That Loki was going to _leave_ , that he was going to steer the ship into unknown locations to betray Thor all over again, that he was going to do something else entirely the night he went out of the room when Thor had asked for his help regarding the engines.

And it _clicks _.__

Thor steps at the foot of the bed, his heart unprepared to hear the inevitable. Loki ducks away, bothered by the close proximity of Thor’s presence.

“What did you do with the engines, Loki?”

The words slip out as a desperate plea.

Then Loki says nothing to ease the ache Thor’s chest. In the darkness, he reaches out to Thor’s arm and touches the skin. It turns blue once again.

Thor watches. He does nothing but watch, wanting so desperately to skip every second that passes so he could just hold his brother and wish that nothing wrong would ever try to come between them.

But Thor finds himself doubting himself at Loki’s next words.

“You must not be afraid,” Loki tells him, fingers tightening around Thor’s wrist. “After this.”

That night, Loki doesn’t leave the room. Instead, he lies awake next to his brother and just watches.

**…**

It happens the next day, when Loki’s hand is still tangled in Thor’s hair.

Thor is forced to awaken at the loud crash from the right side of the ship and the sudden jerk of Loki’s fingers above his nape.

“Loki,” he says, frantic. Thor's arms reach out to check if he’s indeed not alone. He’s not. “What’s going on?”

When Loki doesn’t respond, Thor sits up from the bed and glances toward the door at the screams heard from outside. Loki has already changed from his nightgown to his armour. With a deliberate turn, he stares at Thor with fear stricken all over his face.

“Your armour, Thor,” he says, palms already conjuring knives in each. “Brother, you must be prepared for whatever may come.”

Brunhilde meets them at the rear of the ship where most of the Asgardians had hidden in order to escape the loud collision. Thor and Loki mostly assist the elderly people, counting the heads in the process.

“Your majesty,” Brunhilde calls from behind, a gnash of blood painted across her forehead. Her eyes directing to the door that leads to the bridge of the ship. “There are refugees stuck with them.”

 _Them _.__ Thor searches for Loki’s eye, and when they meet, they both come down to the understanding that their fates now lie solely in their own hands no matter what happens.

So they fight.

And they fight for the people, for their future, and for each other.

But Thor’s head ends up being used to strike a bargain, and Loki’s outstretched hand that offers the tesseract to the titan is a sight much more agonizing than the pain Thor has felt when being crushed against the power stone.

He lies there helplessly, grounded by the large pieces of metal Maw has surrounded him with. Thor can do nothing but watch, bear the pain of his heart twisting inside his chest at the sight of Loki’s body lying limp between the titan’s clenching fist.

He hears a snap.

**…**

Niðavellir. A made up word.

Thor blinks, takes in the sight. Deserted, abandoned. A wasteland of dead stars.

He truly isn’t prepared.

In the distance, he hears the rabbit (for what it’s worth, he’s actually the captain) cursing at the tree for being so engrossed at the device it was playing. Simple things. Things Thor wishes he could find humour in.

He could remember the events that led to the recent destruction. Even as he had floated in the vast void, he could perfectly remember the way Loki had stared at him as he held Thor’s wrist and turned it blue once again.

He remembers watching Loki bargain over the tesseract for his life, how Loki had faced his foe with the promise of an embraced and accepted identity, finally laying down his life to save Thor and genuinely claiming to be his brother.

And in that moment, Thor _just_ knew where Loki had gone that night when he asked his brother to check on the engines himself.

No matter how much he drifts back to the things he had too blind to see, Thor feels pride at the realization that Loki had gone to the engines that night to prepare the escape pods hidden in the rear area of the ship.

With a shaky hand, he leans his weight against the wall of the Milano. He blinks once more, closes his eyes, counts one, two, three—

_It’s a heartbeat. You’ll never be ready._

The hallows of Thor’s head is consumed with Loki’s voice as he spoke the words back in Swartalfheim, and with a glance at Stormbreaker, Thor thinks, yes, Loki’s right—he will never be ready.

But he will fight.

What more could he lose, anyway?

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think? Kudos and feedback will be appreciated! :) 
> 
> Check out my hospital fic [Juda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800830/chapters/44608387) if that's your thing. Loki has a heart condition and Thor goes through extremes to help his brother through his illness. No major character death, so don't worry (shameless self-promotion whoops)
> 
> Also, I'm @shattered-loki on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shattered-loki) for those who would like to catch some fic updates.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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